Jeff Poor

On his Tuesday radio show, conservative talker Mark Levin took issue with Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan — the 2012 GOP nominee for vice president — for his associations with controversial pro-immigration elements on the left, including Illinois Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez, who he appeared with earlier in the week at an event in Chicago.

Levin explained that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to see the Wisconsin Republican as a candidate he could support for the presidency in the future.

“Paul Ryan is an extremely likable guy,” Levin said. “He’s been on this show many times. I like the man. But he’s creating a record here for himself that makes it very, very hard, in my view, if he chooses to run for president, to vote for him. Again, I like him a lot. I think he’s one of the smartest guys around. But when push comes to shove, he’s pushed and he’s shoved by [House Speaker John] Boehner and the others. And so he votes for all these things despite saying, you know we have two years until we’re not going to be able to reverse course financially. Well, if that’s true, then why do we vote for these things?”

Levin then offered several reasons why he thought Ryan was wrong and called his answer “appalling.”

“It disappoints me to no end to see honorable men like Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio to pretend that immigration has nothing to do with what took place in Boston,” Levin said. “Because what they’re really saying is immigration has nothing to do with national security when in fact that’s the first obligation of border security, although I should amend that. I saw Marco Rubio said, ‘Look if we need to modify the proposal to address what took place in Boston, we should.’ So I will say that. Paul Ryan dismisses it out of hand. That’s appalling. That’s outrageous. I mean if anything, we have border security to keep terrorists and criminals from coming in, don’t we?”